Blogs » Politics » Photo: A metal band plays at Chaoyang Shopping Mall in Beijing, by Jordan Pouille

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• Photo: A metal band plays at Chaoyang Shopping Mall in Beijing, by Jordan Pouille
• Communist Elders Take Backroom Intrigue Beachside
• Don’t have a gaokao
• Chinese Netizens to Embattled Syrians: We Support You, Even If Our Government Does Not
• My Reflections on Shanghai
• Who wore it better, Jing Tian or Huo Siyan?
• The U.S. Should Import Gun Control from China

Photo: A metal band plays at Chaoyang Shopping Mall in Beijing, by Jordan Pouille Posted: 21 Jul 2012 06:53 PM PDT A metal band plays at Chaoyang Shopping Mall in Beijing © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Communist Elders Take Backroom Intrigue Beachside Posted: 21 Jul 2012 06:48 PM PDT The New York Times' Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfield report from Beidaihe, a seaside resort outside Beijing, where Communist leaders have traditionally vacationed and held important behind-the-scenes meetings. This year the meetings are expected to be especially important as they will likely settle decisions about who will be promoted to the powerful Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th Party Congress, to be held this coming fall. The decision this year has been complicated by the political scandal involving disgraced Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, who was expected to take over a Standing Committee seat: It is palace intrigue by the sea. In their guarded villas, current and past leaders will negotiate to try to place allies in the 25-member Politburo and its elite Standing Committee, at the top of the party hierarchy. The selections will be announced at the 18th Party Congress this fall in Beijing, heralding what is expected to be only the second orderly leadership transition in more than 60 years of Communist rule. "This is where the factional struggles are settled and the decisions are made," said one resident, surnamed Li, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of Chinese politics. "At the meetings in the fall, everyone just raises their hands." Beidaihe is a Chinese combination of the Jersey Shore and Martha's Vineyard, with a pinch of red fervor: the hilly streets and public beaches are packed with shirtless Russians and Chinese families, while the party elites remain hidden in their villas and on their private patches of sand. A clock tower near Kiessling chimes "The East is Red," a classic Mao anthem. The security presence has surged in recent weeks. Police officers in light blue uniforms patrol on Suzuki motorcycles and stand on street corners watching for jaywalkers. They have set up a checkpoint on the main road leading into town. Read more about the 18th Party Congress and about Bo Xilai via CDT. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: 18th party congress, Bo Xilai, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, leadership, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, power struggle Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Don’t have a gaokao Posted: 21 Jul 2012 03:18 PM PDT Recently, Chinese high school students have completed their gaokao exam. Scores have been made available and students now know their prospects for college. There's been a series of articles in the NYTs, Atlantic and other large mainstream American news sources talking about the gaokao. Let's examine some of these these articles. Edward Wong writing for the New York Times wrote a long piece about it in which he recycles many of the old saws about the Chinese education system. The title is "Test that can determine course of life in China gets a closer examination". Wong takes that challenge upon himself to examine the exam. However, the title relies on the common conception among many people in the US that the Chinese education system heavily relies on tests but Wong claims in the title that this reliance is so strong it can determine "one's course in life." This seems (unsurprisingly) like hyperbole. Many factors determine one's course in life, not juts a single test score in any society. This is true in the US and in China and in most countries. No where does Wong's article give any statistics on how much influence the gaokao has on students life prospects. However, we know from sociology studies that in the US, the SAT test has a large predictability of people's life prospects. But Wong offers no evidence that the gaokao is any more influential in determining (or in his words "setting the course" of) Chinese students life prospects but merely relies on suggestion. Wong also can't resist recycling the old saw that the Chinese education system as a whole including the gaokao is geared towards not creativity but "rote learning" or  "memorization." But debate appears to have grown more heated lately over the value of the gaokao (pronounced gow-kow). Critics say the exam promotes the kind of rote learning that is endemic to education in China and that hobbles creativity. But again, evidence of this not got given but the claim relies on mere suggestion. What are the questions in the gaokao? Some sample questions are found in these sites (here, here and here). As you can see, many are open essay questions. They are not more ostensibly reliant on memory to answer than many SAT or ACT questions. Sample question: Old Ji is a railway security man and he works on a mountain. His job is to examine the railways to prevent the fallen stones and trees from affecting the trains. He salutes every time the train passes, and the train will honk its horn in return. What do these scenes remind of you? So it seems that the often cited memorization-heavy accusation directed at the gaokao has little support. Of course, the gaokao also tests other abilities using multiple choice style questions. But the SAT and ACT and other subject tests which US high school students must take also requires knowledge of subjects that are learned through memory using multiple choice style questions. No evidence is given that the gaokao is anymore reliant on memorization to do well in than these other exams. Wong makes additional factual errors and fallacies in his piece. Peking University, among the most prestigious, does not release admission rates, but Mr. Zhong said on his television program that a student from Anhui Province had a one in 7,826 chance of getting into Peking University, while a student from Beijing had one in 190 odds, or 0.5 percent. (Harvard had a 5.9 percent acceptance rate this year.) This seems to be a case of innumeracy and a case of the  fallacy of false comparison. The stats he gives of admission to the prestigious Peking University cannot be compared with Harvard's admission rates because this seems to be a case of comparing apples to oranges. In the case of the figure given for Peking, it is the overall "chance" of a student getting admission to Peking from the respective places but the stats for Harvard are for the admission for applicants (i.e., percentage of people who applied to Harvard who then got in).  At minimum, Wong fails to give adequate support that the two cited stats are comparable (that is, of the rate of admission among applicants). Wong makes additional unsupported and sensationalistic claims such as Of course, children of senior Communist Party members, government leaders and prominent businesspeople have their own back channels to admission, a phenomenon that exists, too, in the West, though perhaps not to the same degree. We know that in the US, children of rich people, alumni and celebrities are given huge advantages in the admissions process. Many admission policies function as de facto affirmative action programs for wealthy whites. See here for an excellent book on this topic. I seriously doubt that the Chinese college admissions process is as biased in privileging the already privileged as the US system. In any case, Wong offers no evidence again for this claim. In the  end of the article, of course, Wong cannot resist the temptation to mention how sneaky and prone to cheat Chinese people are. Each year, cheating scandals become the talk of China. One common tactic was for students to give their identification cards to look-alikes hired to take the test; later, many provinces installed fingerprint scanners at test centers. Another common saw leveled at the gaokao is that it is "difficult." One sensationalistic article claims that the SAT test is "nothing compared" to the gaokao in difficulty (or makes the SAT look like a "game of scrabble"). But the gaokao is a standardized test like the SAT. It makes little sense to call such tests "difficult" because they are essentially graded on a curve. It's not the test's questions that provides the ultimate hurdles for students, it's other students. "Grueling" (or its cognates) is also an adjective that is commonly used to describe the gaokao. However, the SAT now takes 4.5 hours to complete and many students must also take the ACT (a comparably lengthy and grueling test) and other exams for good college admission prospects. Total testing for all these tests often takes place over several days. Helen Gao at the Atlantic also chimes in about the gaokao. China's gaokao-style education system has been great at imparting math and engineering, as well as the rigorous work ethic that has been so integral to China's rise so far. But if the country wants to keep growing, its state economists know they need to encourage entrepreneurship and creativity, neither of which is tested for on this life-determining exam. This is an incredibly stupid comment. It assumes that engineering and math are not creative disciplines when in fact they are among  the most creative. It relies on old stereotypes of engineering and mathematics without knowledge of what these disciplines are actually about. Many if not most of the patents in society are from engineers or other people in the STEM disciplines. Furthermore, China's education system, as one famous educator has explained, does educate people on creativity. In fact, it takes creativity to do well on the PISA exams because it is designed to measure creative problem solving skills as he explained and it was not long ago that China showed the world that their education system blows the rest of the world away on the PISA. To bolster her case that Chinese society is not creative Gao says They hope to see an educated workforce, rather than toiling on factory floors or sitting in the cubicles of Western companies' Chinese branches, found their own businesses or brands that will sell to domestic as well as international buyers. They want domestic moviegoers to stop purchasing bootleg DVDs of Western blockbusters, and for foreign viewers to start raving about Chinese films. But the nation's education system, instead of channeling the youthful energy of China's next generation, seems to be blocking it. Again, she is confused.This time she confuses popularity in art (her example here is film) with its creativity. Chinese film makers are as creative as anyone else. In fact, the best Chinese film makers are better than the best western film makers in my honest opinion. As further evidence that China's education system is not effective at producing creative people, Gao then says China needs a generation of entrepreneurs to develop a more innovative economy, its national leaders know, but a recent report found that only 1.6 percent of Chinese college graduates started businesses last year, the same as the year before. But she fails to give any stats on the number of US college graduates who started businesses last year.  Gao acknowledges that US college system is excellent at inculcating creativity but, by that measure, we are not given any data that they fare better than Chinese grads. There maybe many legitimate criticisms of the Chinese education system and the gaokao more specifically but the criticisms leveled at it by these journalists seems to be wholly based not on facts and sound reasoning but on flimsy stereotypes and dismissive, superficial glances. Many Chinese students will have great careers and advance society with low gaokao scores. Likewise, many who do well will not have influential careers and not advance society. It is an aspect of the Chinese society but not the only or even most important aspect. Talking about the gaokao in the west seem to be not an exercise in analysis of the defects and strengths of the Chinese education system but an exercise in making westerners feel better about their own.

Chinese Netizens to Embattled Syrians: We Support You, Even If Our Government Does Not Posted: 21 Jul 2012 01:07 PM PDT Arise those who would not be slaves... With another veto cast by China against a UN resolution aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis, some Chinese netizens are expressing their outrage on Sina Weibo, a microblogging platform. Thursday's resolution would have used the threat of economic sanctions to pressure the Syrian government into implementing a peace plan that had been accepted months ago and then swept under the rug. While the efficacy of such a resolution would have been doubtful given the all-out civil war that has broken out across Syria, the recent spate of rebel victories against the regime combined with the threat of sanctions — and, perhaps more importantly, the threat of further action by a unified security council — may have helped to bring the regime back to the bargaining table. But it was not to be, with Russia joining China to veto the resolution in the UN Security Council. And, like after previous vetoes, many Chinese netizens were unhappy with their government's defense of the murderous regime: One netizen, @朱智勇-, tweets, "A Syrian slogan reads: Russians and Chinese, no matter how you try to protect your puppet, you can't stop us from ridding Syria of these idiots. My opinion: the three vetoes [cast by the government] cannot represent the Chinese people. The Chinese people support your righteous cause; the dawn of Syrian democracy is imminent. Victory will belong to the brave Syrian people." [1] @蓝天白云Vopines from Xi'an: "The concepts of sovereignty and territorial integrity are passé. Human rights are supreme and trump sovereignty. Non-interference with internal affairs does not equal a free pass for dictators to slaughter a country's people in order to maintain their regime." [2] @cellery_莫名 writes, "The Chinese government doesn't represent the Chinese people. I hope the Syrian people will understand!" [3] @Bill_Xie tweets from overseas: "I'm glad [the news reports] said Russia and China, not Russians and Chinese. Every time when I see Syrian students in Dundas Square collecting signatures I always tell them: 'I'm Chinese. I support you.' " [4] @画大饼的厨子 tweeted a phrase from China's national anthem: "Arise, those who would not be slaves!" [5] Words penned in the 1930′s by a people fighting to free themselves from foreign invasion by the Empire of Japan were thus transported across time and space to encourage the Syrian people fighting to free themselves from an internal tyranny. Footnotes    (? returns to text) 叙利亚人标语：俄罗斯和中国，无论你们怎么保护你们的傀儡，都无法阻止我们把你们这些蠢货杀出叙利亚。——微评：三次否决代表了不了中国人民。中国人民支持你们的正义事业，叙利亚民主的黎明即将到来，胜利属于勇敢的叙利亚人。? 国家主权和领土完整的观念已经过时，人权至上，人权大于主权，不干涉内政不等于放纵独裁者杀戮本国人民，维持强权统治。? 中国政府不代表中国人民，请叙利亚人民明鉴!? 我很欣慰他们用的Russia和China，没用Russian和Chinese。每次在Dundas Square遇到叙利亚留学生的签名活动，都要说一句：我是中国人，我支持你们。? 起来，不愿做奴隶的人们!?

My Reflections on Shanghai Posted: 21 Jul 2012 07:59 AM PDT I have now spent a week in Shanghai roaming around and mingling with friends, relatives, and locals. Lately, I have asked myself what were the most revealing this past week.  Looking at Luzhiazui's seemingly endless number of artfully designed skyscrapers and noticing a sea of stylishly dressed Chinese pouring through Shanghai's modern subway system, I can honestly say modernity has arrived. That's a great thing, because it says that China is inspired, and places like Shanghai serve as great role models for the rest of the country. Having dined at so many outstanding Chinese restaurants where both food and décor are top notch, I think China is poised for greatness in that area too. But, sure, food safety is a big concern at the moment. As I hear by friends and relatives talk, I am reminded of the 1930s America. Back then, the FDA was at its infancy too. Journalists and activists clamored for better food safety by publicly exposing all sorts of ills. If we look at China today, the awareness building and demand for action are very similar. China has the difficulty of getting through this with way more people, but has more modern technology at her disposal. One of my cousins has started his own factory in Shanghai producing some sort of electronic component. Seeing his energy and drive, I am reminded how vibrant China is. He talked about a recent huddle with a group of factory workers in trying to figure out how to raise product quality and overall output. I told him that these are actually great problems to have.  Thinking back when we were little boys in rural Fujian Province, I am yet reminded how socially mobile Chinese society is. His sister is now looking into moving into Shanghai. Yes, despite China's hukou system. I told my aunt 10 years ago, she probably didn't imagine where her family would be today. She laughed and agreed. Then, I said, she won't be able to imagine where her family will be at 10 years from now! She laughed again. Minxin Pei, in his recent debate with Eric Li at the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival said that China's system is 'extractive' benefitting only the ruling elite. Well, my cousin and many of my friends in China are examples of where ordinary Chinese are benefitting. It is mind boggling how devoid of reality people like Pei in the West are plagued with. I often asked, "what do you think are the biggest issues confronting China now?" Invariably, the following three come up: corruption, food safety and pollution, and territorial disputes. There's a lot of discussion about Japan's recent move to try to 'legitimize' her claim to Diaoyu dao (Senkaku in Japanese). I haven't fully caught up on the debates that are taking place on CCTV. Once I do, I hope to write a separate post on it. Many Chinese believe the Japanese are taking a very hawkish stance over the dispute and are escalating tension with China. In regards to corruption, reality in China is actually quite different from the Western view, or at least how the dominant, yet simplistic, view as expressed in the Western press. From a practical stand point, there are norms bound by culture which enforces a type of level-playing field, in fact could be fair and just. For example, if one has a dispute with someone else and they themselves cannot resolve, one or both parties solicit the help of someone else. Presumably, someone of higher authority and influence are pulled in. Sure, some payment or gift may have been given for the help. The dispute invariably settles, but how? Well, they are done with the sense of justice from the influential third parties involved. Is this corruption? Not necessarily so. This form of dispute settlement is actually not that foreign to Westerners either. Especially in societies like America where, in recent decades, third-party "arbitration" has become an accepted practice. The difference in the American practice as compared to what China has done for thousands of years is simply that the former has formalize this process and standardized it through writing and procedures. Not that long ago, Americans took out guns and shot each other in duels to settle differences. American society eventually established a culture for rule of law, where differences are settled in the courts. That took a long while too. Then due to exorbitant legal fees, American society further adopted third-party arbitration as another settlement mechanism. As Martin Jacques explained, China is a civilization state. It has lasted 5,000 years. So, in my view, a civilization cannot last that long if there is no sense of justice and fairness ingrained in its culture somehow. China will transition too into more formalized arbitration practices. China will too become a more rule of law society. Will these two aspects happen suddenly overnight? Absolutely not! I think those two aspects will in fact complement Chinese culture. It is the negotiation of these 3 ways of conflict resolution that will propel Chinese society forward. On my way to the Shanghai Hongqiao airport, the taxi driver was listening to a legal activist show on the radio, hosted by a prominent legal professional. A rather unhappy consumer called in for advice in a dispute with a local car dealership. He believes a certain deposit with-held by the dealership was illegal as the purchase did not go through. Over the air, he asked the host to call authorities on his behalf assuming himself on the right, but in response, the host admonished him for such a request. The host explained that as a media organization, their role should be to seek truth. Hearing one side is impossible to ascertain who is right and who is wrong. I was taken by that comment and started to listen more intently. So, the host proceeded to call the dealership. A manager there answered and explained his rationale for keeping the deposit. Obviously, in this situation, either party could violate the deposit terms. The dealership may have problems with the car itself or have any other variety of issues such that the consumer could back out legally without losing his deposit. On the other hand, simply changing one's mind on the consumer's part is not sufficient in such a situation either. Then he explained the applicable Chinese law in this kind of situation. Anyways, I arrived at the airport before hearing how this dispute was resolved. One thing that struck me was how interested the taxi driver was into listening to this program. He explained to me that he is very popular in Shanghai. I said to the driver that I respect the host, because he helps the public understand Chinese law by applying them to real world everyday situations. He nodded enthusiastically. The driver then comments, "the host has a lot of guangxi. The dealership or the car buyer cannot mess with him!" So, indeed, China moves forward with guangxi and everything else! It's not an either-or dichotomy (rule of law or no rule of law).

Who wore it better, Jing Tian or Huo Siyan? Posted: 20 Jul 2012 11:09 PM PDT Actress Huo Siyan and Jing Tian (景甜) wore the same dress from the Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2012 collection, when they attended the star-studded Fall/Winter 2012-2013 fashion show of the French luxury brand on July 19. To court China's wealthy, Louis Vuitton has just opened its first Maison in China, the World's 3rd-largest luxury market, in Shanghai at Plaza 66. The four-floor Maison is also the brand's largest retail store in China, and its 16th such store Worldwide. Jing Tian Huo Siyan

The U.S. Should Import Gun Control from China Posted: 21 Jul 2012 03:38 AM PDT I woke today to a sky that looks like cottage cheese that was left for hours on a hot sidewalk, the air being so disgusting and clingy that I had to immediately jump in the shower and do my best reinactment of Gattaca to rid myself of the scum crust. In other words, I started the day a bit cranky already. Then I got to the news and read that a crazed gunman had stormed into a movie theater in Colorado and blasted a bunch of people who were guilty of nothing more than trying to enjoy the new Batman flick. A good portion of the news coverage that ensued either argued why it was inappropriate to talk about gun control and/or explained why the U.S. government was too cowed by the National Rifle Association to change the law following this tragedy. I felt simultaneously sickened by my home country's congenital brain fart when it comes to firearms policy, but also slightly happier about where I live now. Sure, the atmosphere is barely sustainable for carbon-based life forms, but hey, at least the government doesn't deny global warming. That at least holds out the possibility of fixing the problem sometime in the future. Moreover, China isn't run by religious freaks or politicians who believe in voodoo economics like it was a proven science. And yes, if that wasn't enough to make me feel at least a little better about that nagging, chronic cough I developed over the winter, the shooting pains in my lungs, and that suspicious purple discharge that seeps out of my belly button every time the barometric pressure falls below 993 millibars, I can be happy knowing that the vast majority of sickos in the city I live in do not have access to guns. The historical/juvenile fixation that Americans have with guns is downright embarrassing. The worldwide image of the gun-toting violent American is sad but true. And this isn't just about people dying in the U.S. American gun manufacturers, whose lobbying organization is arguably the most powerful special interest in the country, exports death all over the world. USA! USA! USA! For every 100 people in the U.S., there are 90 guns. Let me stop a second while you digest that. It's a per capita figure from 2007. And if that includes every person who lives in the U.S., including infants, people in comas, paraplegics and people smart enough to realize that having a gun in their home is dangerous, then we're talking about at least one gun for every adult in the country. Are you freaking kidding me? The number in China in 2007? Three. Three guns for every 100 people. There is no reasonable argument for why Americans need guns. None pass the giggle test. Hunting? Please. Even if I gave a shit about the rights of hunters (I don't), I'm still a bit confused as to what sort of wildlife someone would bag with a Glock. If someone loses the right to shoot a duck in order to save lives, well, call me crazy but that sounds like an acceptable trade-off. How about protection against a despotic government? Um, you mean one that has tanks and nuclear bombs? Sure, I can see that happening. Look what the cops were able to do in the U.S. last year with just a few canisters of pepper spray, and you'll understand how idiotic this fantasy of armed insurrection is. In the face of this ridiculous, illogical lunacy, the government continues to go along with the fiction that the U.S. Constitution guarantees that citizens can have guns. I suppose that if folks believe that there's an invisible man in the sky who rewards them when they die, they'll believe in anything. But the Constitution doesn't say what they think it does. Not really. All it says is that because society needs "militias" (armed military units — there was no national army 250 years ago), the government should not take away their firearms. The U.S. has a standing army now, it has police, it has the freaking FBI and NSA. It DOES NOT have militias any more, nor does it need them. What a joke. Having a gun is psychologically rewarding, particularly if you're scared and/or paranoid, and shooting one is fun. The things give off a loud noise. Everyone loves that shit. And because of that lizard brain motivation, tens of thousands of people are injured or killed in the U.S. every single year. It absolutely boggles the mind that the U.S. government continues to let this happen, particularly since the most important job of any government is to protect its citizens from physical harm. I'm not too happy that the air where I live is actively trying to kill me, but at least I can go out at night without worrying about someone popping a cap in my ass. Gun control, what a concept! Now I'm even more cranky. Worked myself into a lather. Excuse me while I jump back into the shower and scrape some more of the Beijing off of me. © Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: gun control

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